


we’ll make a brand new start of it (in old new york)

by misantlery



Category: Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 17:44:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17047709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misantlery/pseuds/misantlery
Summary: “Just to be clear,” Andrew says. “You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend at a party to spite your high school bully and your high school girlfriend and possibly the entire state of Ohio?”Steven giggles. “Spite’s such a harsh word. Shock and impress, maybe.”“For a man of faith you’re being awfully morally flexible about this,” Andrew says.





	we’ll make a brand new start of it (in old new york)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girlmarauders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlmarauders/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! You mentioned being into fake dating! I am also _really_ into fake dating. A disclaimer: I know next to nothing about the status of these dudes’ actual relationships and everything contained herein is 100% fiction.

It’s almost midnight on December 29th when Andrew gets a text from Steven. It’s late to be hearing from Steven, and strange to be hearing from him when both their work emails have out of office replies set up through the new year.

**Steven:** hey budddddy :) :) :)

Either Steven’s drunk or he wants something, and he’s almost never drunk. Either way it means nonsense is afoot. Andrew has a very sensitive barometer for Steven’s nonsense by now, having experienced it up-close for several years and on no fewer than four different continents. Five, if you count one brief but memorable layover in Cape Town.

**Andrew** : What, Steven.

**Steven** : hi to you too!! just wondering if you’re still big apple adjacent or if you’re already back in ~the city of angels~?

**Andrew** : I’m in NJ through Jan 3. Why?

Perhaps it’s unkind of Andrew to be suspicious. They are, after all, actual friends. It’s entirely possible Steven just wants to drag him out for a meal at one of the ten thousand New York restaurants he won’t shut up about, since they’re on the same coast for once.

His phone rings.

“What, Steven,” Andrew says again, just because he thinks it’s really so much better with the unamused inflection he pours into it. It’s not even a question—it’s a thesis statement. An _ethos_. His working life, summed up: _what’s this, Steven. What’s next, Steven. What are you doing, Steven._

“What are you doing New Year’s Eve?”

“Eating too many hot wings, beating my parents at Ticket to Ride, and going to sleep at eleven like I do every year, Pinky,” Andrew says. “Why?”

“What if instead you came into the city, Brain?”

“I’d rather saw off my own leg than come into the city on New Year’s Eve,” Andrew explains patiently. This will be Steven’s first New Year’s in New York, so he doesn’t have any context for the hell that’s about to rain down upon him. He doesn’t _know_.

“Not even to do your very best friend a huge favor and be compensated richly for it, not to mention well-fed?”

“You’re not my best friend, Steven,” Andrew sort-of lies.

Andrew can practically hear Steven wave it away through the phone, like the nothingburger of a pronouncement that he knows it to be.

“I need a person to come to this New Year’s party with me,” Steven says. “It’s a gala for charity, actually, and I know the guy running it. I said I’d come as a favor, but…”

He trails off. Steven’s not really a trailing-off kind of guy, most of the time. Usually he just blathers for a while until he’s managed to get out what he wanted to say and plenty more that he didn’t intend to say. Now Andrew’s _more_ suspicious.

He sighs.

“But what, Steven?” He can’t stop saying Steven’s name. Steven, Steven, Steven. It just lends such a good air of world-weary finality to everything. He enjoys the way it lands like punctuation at the end of his sentences.

“I can’t go alone, for…because of reasons.”

Andrew knows this game by now, so he waits. Steven can dance around direct questions all day, but he’s deathly allergic to extended silences. He’ll start talking just to fill the silence if Andrew holds it long enough, right on the edge of too uncomfortable until Steven tips right over it.

Sure enough— “Okay, he’s, I knew him in high school. He wasn’t a friend. He was kind of a jerk to me, actually, and he said some _very_ rude and small-minded things and I want to show up looking handsome and successful to rub it in his dumb mean face and that means I have to bring a, uh.”

Those are fighting words, coming from Steven, and he lets them out all in a breathless rush and then stops short.

“You have to bring a…?”

Andrew feels like he’s creeping close to the crux of the thing now.

“An equally nice-looking, successful, worldly companion,” Steven says, striving for dignified and not quite hitting it.

“Nice-looking?” Andrew can’t decide if that’s a compliment or not.

“I need to bring a date,” Steven says, and his voice catches a little on the word _date_. Like he’s nervous, because he _is_ nervous, Andrew realizes. “Why are you being such a butt about this?”

“What, is every woman in the world busy?” Andrew asks. And then, “A butt?”

He thinks that’s a fair question, actually. Steven is affectionate with other men, himself included, on the rare occasions when Andrew allows it. But Steven has never, to Andrew’s knowledge, showed any actual interest in men, or really any actual interest in anyone. He dated the same girl for like a decade. If Andrew had been asked to guess, he would not have guessed that Steven would feel comfortable bringing a guy as his date to _anything_.

“No, that’s the fun part,” Steven says. “He was rude and small-minded in a very specific way, and this is going to drive him crazy. He’s going to have to suck up to us because we’re giving to his charity to the tune of five hundred dollars a plate. He won’t be able to say a thing about it when I stick my tongue in your ear and whisper about the mouthfeel of the steak tartare.”

“Wait, five hundred dollars _each_?” Andrew says, incredulous, because that’s a lot. Then the second part catches up to him, and it’s more of a lot. He sort of hates the little thrill that sneaks up his spine, and he hates even more that he’s not sure whether it’s about the tongue stuff or the steak stuff.

Steven is uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. Andrew can hear him fiddling with something on the other end of the line.

“I’ll pay, obviously. There’s also…well. A few other people I knew in high school are going to be there. A couple of her friends.”

He says it like it’s easy for him to say it, like it doesn’t cost him anything: _her friends_. Andrew can hear the lie in it. Of course Steven can’t go alone. Of course he wants to make a splash, the biggest splash he can. Of course he wants to be a little petty, and who’s Andrew to tell him he can’t want that? Andrew’s been there before.

“Just to be clear,” Andrew says. “You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend at a party to spite your high school bully and your high school girlfriend and possibly the entire state of Ohio?”

Steven giggles. “Spite’s such a harsh word. Shock and impress, maybe.”

“For a man of faith you’re being awfully morally flexible about this,” Andrew says. “What with the lying and the…the tomfoolery.”

“Andrew, it’s for _charity_.”

*

Andrew doesn’t even remember saying yes, is the funny thing. He doesn’t remember agreeing to this, and yet here he is taking the ferry into the city at seven o’clock on New Year’s Eve along with every other pathetic dupe in the tri-state area.

Most of them aren’t wearing suits, though. Andrew’s not sure whether that sets him higher or lower than them on the pathetic scale.

It’s all a blur now, but probably Steven had begged him. Steven can be very shameless when he wants to be, when it suits him, and that’s something Andrew’s no good at guarding against. When Steven goes all big-eyed and pouty-lipped, “Please Andrew, please please please, pleeeease,” Andrew will agree to just about anything to make him stop doing it.

That’s probably what happened here. He was worn down. There’s no other reason he would ever agree to go into New York City, on New Year’s Eve of all nights, to go on a pretend date with Steven Lim in full view of human beings who possess cell phone cameras and the bad manners to use them for evil.

He gets off the ferry at Pier 11 and Steven’s there waiting for him, in a suit, with a car. He’s leaning against the car—something sleek and dark and chauffeured—when Andrew approaches, very devil-may-care, as if he produced it that way. Steven’s seen too many romantic comedies and Andrew does not care for it.

“You’ve seen too many romantic comedies and I don’t care for it,” Andrew says by way of hello.

“You look nice too,” Steven says, with a crinkle-eyed grin and a showy adjustment of his cuffs. He opens the _door_ for Andrew, and Andrew almost refuses to get in the car on principle.

“Who are you performing for?” Andrew asks, sliding in. “We’re not even at the place yet.”

“Just getting in character,” Steven says. “Preparing to woo. You’re going to be wooed like you’ve never been wooed before, my friend.”

“Ugh, stop saying woo.”

“Woo,” Steven says, because he is the kind of person who absolutely must do the thing he’s just been told not to do, in order to find out what will happen when he does.

The chauffeur drives them to the Beekman Hotel, which is—it’s less than a mile away from the pier, Steven, come _on_. In New York City traffic, in New Years Eve New York City traffic, they could have walked it faster. Still, at least they’re a good sixty blocks away from Times Square.

“Posh digs,” Andrew says when they unload again from the car. He’d barely had time to buckle his seatbelt. “I feel underdressed.”

“You’re not underdressed,” Steven says, scanning him up and down. “Just right. Very traditional, the black suit and the white shirt and the black tie, but you’re sort of a traditional guy. It fits. Can I—”

He hesitates. Then he squares his shoulder and holds out his arm for Andrew, and it’s like someone somewhere has yelled “Action!”

There’s nothing to do but take Steven’s arm.

*

The set-up inside is very impressive. Steven’s acquaintance, Jack something-or-other, has booked the entire cellar level of the hotel, all its event space. It must have cost a small fortune. Andrew’s been to charity events before and they’ve always been big, sterile ballroom affairs. This one’s set up like a progressive dinner, with different foods set up at different stations, lots of smaller rooms to explore and nooks and crannies to fall into.

It’s beautiful inside, all exposed brick and dramatic chandeliers, columns and vaulted ceilings and strangely comfortable-looking furniture. It feels intimate and soaring at the same time. Andrew wants to dive into the labyrinth of rooms and get lost, but there’s food to be eaten and people to be schmoozed and Stevens to rein in.

He’s still holding on to Steven’s arm, and he’s dimly aware that they must cut a fairly dashing figure, dressed up as they are. He cleans up okay, if he may say so himself, and Steven’s very striking in his suit. His hair is pale silvery-lavender in the light, taller than tall.

“I’m nervous,” he confesses to Andrew. He does seem to have a charmingly flustered quality about him tonight; his hair’s a little fuzzy despite the product, downy and feathery like a baby bird, and he won’t stop shifting from foot to foot like a runner at the starting line.

“Tell me about the food,” Andrew says, to calm him down. It always works. “I know you asked about the food because you already told me it would be good.”

Steven lights up. “Colicchio designed the whole menu, top to bottom. It’s very old world New York. Oysters Rockefeller and Lobster Thermidor and Duck a l’Orange. On the phone Jack—that’s the guy I know, the host of this thing—called him Tom, like he’s our _mutual_ _good friend Tom_ , and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d never met the man.”

“Old world New York would be New Amsterdam,” Andrew says. He’s trying to remember if he’s ever eaten Lobster Thermidor before. “Thermidor, that’s the one with the mustard?”

“Mustard and brandy and, oh, egg yolks, I think. I’m not super up to date on my old-fashioned white people food,” Steven says. He’s distracted, looking around the place for people he recognizes. “Quick, lean in and whisper something in my ear,” he says out of the corner of his mouth, tugging circumspectly at Andrew’s cuff.

Andrew sees a guy walking over, tall and clean-cut, very Joe Midwest Debate Club Champion. Andrew hates the guy on principle, just from the little Steven’s told him. He puts his hand on Steven’s lower back, leans in close to Steven’s ear, and whispers, “I don’t really think mustard belongs on lobster but we’ll see if the Top Chef guy can prove me wrong.”

Steven throws his head back and laughs like Andrew’s just said something really funny. The smile he shoots Andrew after is impish and familiar with a little extra something in it, a touch of knowing mischief just for him. As Andrew draws back he gets a whiff of spicy, Steven’s cologne or aftershave or both.

The man approaching draws back, like he’s unsure if he’s interrupting a private moment. Then he surges forward with his hand outstretched.

“Steven, so great to see you. I watch your show occasionally, of course, when I have the time, but in person—it’s been ages,” the guy says. He says _when I have the time_ like he’s usually _way_ too busy single-handedly curing cancer with expensive fundraisers to watch silly YouTube food shows.

Steven shakes the proffered hand graciously. He has impeccable manners, Steven. He would never be rude, even to someone who’s historically been rude to him and has now apparently decided to pretend that history doesn’t exist.

“Jack, the event really came together, this place is insane! Andrew, this is Jack Morris, we went to high school together and he works in nonprofit management now. Jack, this is my—this is my Andrew.”  Steven gets through most of the introduction coolly, but he flusters at the end and whiffs it a little.

“His boyfriend,” Andrew amends. “Nice to meet you, Jeff,” he says, getting the guy’s name wrong on purpose just to watch Mr. Chiseled McBully clench his jaw in annoyance. Steven’s too nice to be rude, perhaps, but Andrew’s not above it when it’s earned.

“Boyfriend,” Jack repeats. It’s not framed as a question, but they can hear the question in it.

“Six months next week,” Andrew says, gazing over at Steven with what the internet assures him skates very close to lovesick adoration. He didn’t expect to get into this ridiculous charade as much as he is, but there’s something about this guy that really pisses him off. Something about the gall of it, asking a dude he was a dick to in high school to his fucking five-hundred-dollar-a-plate charity function, sets Andrew’s teeth on edge.

“Well, congratulations!” Jack says. His smile’s toothy but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Please, help yourselves to the food. You’re free to mingle and eat whatever you stumble upon. There will be dancing at ten, and we’ll all gather at 11:30 in the main space to ring in 2019.”

He’s off to greet other guests then, and Andrew sees Steven’s shoulders relax almost imperceptibly. He claps a hand on Andrew’s shoulder.

“Thanks for that. I know this is a really weird thing to ask you to do, but…” he shrugs. “I really couldn’t face it alone. I feel a lot better with you here.”

Whatever thing there is in men that makes them uncomfortable around other men, whatever the source of that deliberate and learned distance, Steven doesn’t have it. He’s always been an easy target for male distrust, even at Buzzfeed, because he simply doesn’t pay any mind to the usual physical and emotional boundaries. Sometimes he’ll give Andrew a big bear hug after they’ve been apart, in greeting, and Andrew’s surprised every time. Sometimes he’ll say things unprompted that are so emotionally honest that Andrew doesn’t feel equipped to deal with them.  

Eating with Steven, though. That’s something Andrew knows how to do. They pick their way through room-by-room, grabbing hors d’oeuvres off the plates of passing-by waiters. The food is great; everything’s super-traditional at first glance, but there’s a modern twist to each dish that surprises. The grapes in the Waldorf Salad are soaked in something boozy and frozen, so they pop in Andrew’s mouth in bursts of bright champagne. The Lobster Thermidor’s served as a mousse with a ginger-jelly sauce. The duck has the most amazing flash-seared crispy skin, almost like it was deep-fried.

Steven relaxes more with every dish they try. He even indulges in a drink or two, some pink specialty cocktail far sweeter than anything Andrew would drink voluntarily.

They wind up in a little nook with an elaborate display of updated Oysters Rockefeller—rows and rows of ugly-beautiful oysters on the half shell, topped with truffle-bonito butter and cracker crumbs, swimming in some kind of sauce.

“You’re an oyster boy, right?” Andrew asks, sniffing dubiously. He gets a whiff of something boozy and bitter.

“You know I am,” Steven says. Andrew remembers the wharf in Australia, salt in the air and gulls screaming in the mics until Adam had to pull his headphones askew. “Especially when they’re pre-shucked, otherwise I get excited and accidentally almost stab myself trying to get into them.”

He wiggles his fingers around like he’s Edward Scissorhands. It sounds so funny that Andrew makes a mental note to start looking into an all-oyster episode when he gets back to L.A., no matter what jokes the fans make.

Steven throws back an oyster and immediately starts coughing. “Ho—whoof, what is that, that’s some—that is a taste, wow.” He coughs again, bent nearly at the waist.

There are two women sidling up to them, drinks in hand, looking ready to make conversation. Andrew delivers a firm elbow to Steven’s side and Steven stands up again. His eyes go wide, still watering from the coughing fit.

“Hi, Steven,” one of the women says. She leans in for a hug, one of those careful side things women give men they know but aren’t necessarily happy to see. “How _are_ you?” She asks the question very delicately.

“Oh, I’m great! Meg, Liu, this is my partn—uh, my boyfriend Andrew.”

He doesn’t tell Andrew anything about the women in return, but he doesn’t need to. From the looks on their faces Andrew can tell these are Steven’s ex’s friends.

They’re so gobsmacked they don’t say a word. It’s a miracle one of them hasn’t already excused herself to the bathroom to Tweet about it. It’ll be all over some group text full of Steven’s high school acquaintances within half an hour, which is obviously exactly what Steven wanted.

“Nice to meet you both,” Andrew says dutifully. He slides his hand around Steven’s waist again, to remind Steven what they’re meant to be doing here, and Steven leans into him. For some reason Andrew always forgets that Steven’s taller than him until they’re standing side-by-side like this. Not that they’ve ever stood _exactly_ like this, pressed together so there’s no space between them.

“I was just telling Andrew how good the oysters are,” Steven continues. “Babe, you’ve got to try one.”

_Babe_ , come on. Andrew’s going to tell him off for that one later. Even people he’s actually dating don’t call him _babe_.

Steven lifts an oyster to Andrew’s mouth and—this is embarrassing—Andrew opens it on instinct so he can slurp the oyster out of its shell. The sad truth is that they’ve fed each other so often on the damn show that this, at least, his body considers perfectly normal behavior and responds to without prompting.

The sauce is the thing that made Steven cough, because it’s mostly absinthe. The fennel and wormwood and dry herbs burn all the way down, like boozy menthol.

“Oh, that’s surprising!” Andrew says, because it is. He’s surprised. He needs to eat five more to decide how he feels about them.

“Aren’t they sexy?” Steven asks, and his eyebrows knit together as if it wasn’t what he planned to say at all. “Because oysters are, um, an aphrodisiac, they say, I don’t know who _they_ are, and these are alcoholic oysters so they’re doubly so, two times the sexy quotient, and…”

He’s floundering a little. Well, he’s floundering a lot, the way he always does when he verges into talking about what is and isn’t sexy. Andrew has the impression that Steven isn’t quite sure what he thinks is sexy, that he doesn’t let himself think about it too hard. Not that—not that _Andrew_ lets himself think about Steven thinking about what’s sexy too hard.

Honestly, though. _Sexy quotient_.

“They’re crazy,” Andrew says. He picks up another oyster and throws it back for a sharp hit of oceany brine and earthy truffle and the herbal burn of the absinthe. Earth, fire, water. Steven exhales loudly, his eyes on Andrew as he swallows the oyster down, and there’s the final element: air.

They make polite small talk with Meg and Liu for fifteen agonizing minutes, all of them carefully avoiding talking about the person they have in common in favor of easy stuff like how cold it is outside and where they’re planning to shoot for the show in the new year. Steven stays pressed close the whole time.

At ten on the dot, Steven slides seamlessly out of whatever topic they’re all jabbering on about.

“Dance with me, babe?” he asks Andrew, but it’s not really a request. It’s an escape, and Andrew will take what he can get.

“Happily,” Andrew says, and they make their goodbyes.

*

Steven leads him back into the main foyer, where space has been cleared for dancing. In fitting with the vibe and the theme of the food, the deejay is spinning a lot of old classics, cinematic and croony and slow. They stand there for a moment, unsure. Who will touch who, and where? Who will lead? Does someone have to lead?

Finally Steven shakes his head. “Okay, this is—I took ballroom dancing lessons, it’s not that different.” He clasps Andrew’s right hand with his left, and with his other he spans his arm around Andrew to rest on the small of his back. They’re close like this, but not cheek-to-cheek, as they start to sway.

One tune slides effortlessly into the next, “Moon River” to Frank Sinatra crooning gently about New York, New York. It does something funny to Andrew’s stomach, to the part of him that’s susceptible to nostalgia and longing, to be dancing to a song about New York in New York. There’s a reason he doesn’t live here anymore, the speed and the stress of it don’t suit him, but there’s undeniably something about the place. He understands why Steven loves it so much.

_These little town blues_ _  
_ _Are melting away_

“Are you okay?” Andrew asks. “That was a lot of awkward small talk back there.”

Steven shrugs. “Actually, yeah, it’s wasn’t so bad. I thought I’d be—I thought it would be harder, but mostly I didn’t feel anything like…I just wanted to watch you eat your way through that whole table of oysters. I wish I had a camera.”

“I’ve never tasted anything like that,” Andrew says. “That’s the cool thing about food, right? You can eat for a living, like we do, and there are still infinite tastes out there waiting to be discovered. Infinite combinations and possibilities.”

“That’s weirdly romantic,” Steven says. “I feel that way about it too.”

He looks at Andrew consideringly. He has to look down a little, and Andrew thinks again, _tall_. “How are you doing? This is so strange, I know. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s really not that strange,” Andrew lies. Of course it’s strange, but they’re in it now, so there’s no use belaboring the point. “I can live without the _babe_ thing.”

“You don’t like _babe_? Do I need to get more creative with my endearments? There’s a whole world of food-related ones available to me.  

“You could just call me Andrew,” Andrew says. “I doubt anyone will be like, aha, he didn’t call his boyfriend sweet cheeks, must be fake.”

“Do you _want_ me to call you sweet cheeks?” Steven asks. He’s definitely had a few drinks; his face is flushed pink, and the hand on Andrew’s lower back is suddenly sliding down to cup his ass and then back up just as fast. Steven makes a shocked face, like he can’t believe he just did that, and between the hair and the shocked round O of his mouth he looks like an anime character.

“Steven!”

“What? I’m selling it!”

“You’re drunk and _over_ -selling it.”

“ _You’re_ drunk,” is all that Steven can come back with, and he cackles at how weak it is.

Andrew’s not drunk, he doesn’t think—certainly not by New Years Eve standards. If he were drunk everything would be going fuzzy by now, but instead it’s all standing out in sharp relief: the dramatic recessed lighting under the columns, and the sea breeze aftertaste of the oysters, and Steven’s warm hand in his own.

_I'll make a brand new start of it_ _  
_ _In old New York_

Andrew slides his fingers down just a little, to feel for Steven’s pulse point. He doesn’t do it to be creepy, he just—does it. Steven’s pulse is going fast, like he’s been drinking caffeine and not alcohol. Probably not that drunk, then.

He’s not sure why he does it, but he wraps his own arm around Steven and pulls him closer, so they’re pressed together from chest to hip. Maybe Andrew’s imagining it, but he thinks he can almost feel Steven’s heartbeat going a hundred miles an hour through all the layers he’s wearing, undershirt and dress shirt and suit jacket. And then Andrew’s thinking about the layers, and how all the best foods are layered: pizza and pastries, baked pastas and sushi.  

He thinks about pulling apart a croissant flake by buttery flake, feeling the puff of warm steam on his face. Completely unbidden, he thinks about de-layering Steven the same way. About pulling off the jacket and unbuttoning the buttons of his shirt one by one.

It’s such a startlingly unacceptable thing to think that it almost stops him mid-sway. It’s not even that dirty a thought, by dirty thought standards. It’s just that Andrew knows Steven would be mortified if he knew, which makes Andrew feel perverse for even thinking it.

It’s the atmosphere of the evening, surely, that’s got him mixed up. It’s undeniably romantic in here. The pretending’s gone to his head along with the drinks. That’s normal, probably, for certain parameters of normal where _any_ of this is.

_If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere_ _  
_ _It's up to you, New York, New York_

The song comes rolling into its big, brassy finale, and Andrew starts to move away.

“No, wait,” Steven says, holding him tight where he is. “Please, Andrew, don’t make me talk to other people. It’s safe here. I’m not leaving this dance floor for anything less than dessert.”

Like it’s piling on to end the argument in Steven’s favor, an old tinny version of “Auld Lang Syne” starts playing next. It hits him right in the soft parts; it makes Andrew think of the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and smile.

“No man is a failure who has friends,” he says, more to himself than to Steven. Steven steps on his toe, clearly on purpose.

“Obviously you’re not a failure. What’s happening right now? Are you going all Andrewy on me? Don’t do it, I’m having such a nice time. There’s going to be Baked Alaska, which I’ve never had and which actually I think _nobody_ currently living has had.”

“No, I’m just—reflecting on the year, Steven. God.”

“It was a weird year,” Steven says. “Good and bad. Work was good. The rest…decidedly mixed.”

“Work was good,” Andrew agrees. He thinks back to his year in food, to filming in Japan and Hawaii, to all the good work he did on Eating Your Feed while Steven was taking Manhattan.

Steven’s hand on his back is moving. He slides it under Andrew’s jacket, against the starched dampness of his dress shirt where he’s starting to soak through it. Andrew expects Steven to pull away, grossed out, but he only presses his fingertips against it tentatively.

“It was a weird year,” Steven says again, and there’s something in it. _Sexy quotient_ , Andrew’s brain unhelpfully provides.

Steven’s lonely, is what it is. That must be it. He was alone for most of this year, alone for the first time since he was a kid, and in a new city. He must just like the feel of a familiar touchstone under his hands. The reason he asked Andrew here tonight, instead of someone else, is that Andrew’s safe as houses: a coworker, a professional, and a giant scaredy-cat.

Steven presses against him a little closer ( _there’s no closer to get, Steven, what are you_ — _what, Steven_ ), and then he makes a strange, strangled whimpering noise and claps his mouth shut. His face, which was flushed already, goes bright red. He steps back, dropping Andrew’s hand.

“What, Steven.”

“They’re putting out the desserts,” Steven says. “We should. We should get some before they’re all gone.”

“Yeah, or we’ll be in a dessert desert,” Andrew says. It’s weak, but it’s all he’s got. Steven gives him a look, pitying, like he wants Andrew to know it’s bad but he can’t even be bothered to tell him so.

Steven makes a beeline for the first dessert table he sees, which is covered in miniature Baked Alaskas sitting on platters of ice.

“But what’s keeping the ice cold?” Steven wonders to himself, before picking up two and handing one off to Andrew.

“Money,” Andrew offers. The show’s done that to him, too. Sometimes he looks at food and sees possibility, but sometimes he looks at it and the cynic in him just sees dollar signs.

“Magic,” Steven corrects. He does even more of the logistical wrangling than Andrew and yet he’s still zero percent cynical about all of it.

“Food cheers?” Steven asks. He digs his spoon into the dessert, cracking through the crust of the meringue to the sponge and ice cream below. Andrew does the same.

Perhaps it’s shameful for someone who does a food show, but Andrew doesn’t care much for meringue. He likes the crack of it, and the dark spots where the blowtorch has toasted it, but mostly he gets a mouthful of that weird chew and wishes he was eating something else.

“Cheers,” Andrew says, clinking his spoon against Steven’s. “To…to 2018 being over, I guess.”

“To making a brand new start of it,” Steven says.

“I’ll eat to that.”

It feels deeply familiar and comfortable by now, this ritual, tapping their forks or spoons or the food in their hands together to celebrate another successful meal. Sometimes when Andrew’s out to dinner with other people he’ll do it by instinct, hold up his utensil to whoever’s sitting beside him. They inevitably stare at him like he’s crazy, or else don’t notice at all, and he feels like he’s been left hanging.

The Baked Alaska’s pretty good, for a meringue dessert. The ice cream inside is coffee, which Andrew gathers is not traditional, but that fits.

“Your tie’s all wonky,” Steven says, setting his empty plate and Andrew’s down on a nearby tray. “Here—just let me.”

Steven pushes Andrew gently at the chest and walks him back, back, _back_ against the wall. He gets his hands on the knot at Andrew’s neck, fussing with it, loosening and straightening and tucking so it lies flat.

Andrew doesn’t object to Steven fixing his tie. He’s standing very close to do it, is all. The stone of the wall is freezing on the back of his neck, or maybe Andrew’s just warm. Andrew looks around to see who’s watching; someone must be watching, to prompt Steven to be so intimate, but he doesn’t see anyone he recognizes nearby.

Steven leans in, and for a moment Andrew thinks something’s going to _happen_. His heart leaps into his throat, but Steven only continues to fiddle with his tie. Very quietly, so no one else can hear, he says, “I had this vaguely-formed plan of kissing you at midnight, but I wanted to check first.”

“Oh y—yeah?” Andrew asks. His voice cracks a little, which is mortifying, but Steven very kindly doesn’t say anything about it.

“I thought it would look weird if we didn’t. Only if that’s okay, though. If you don’t want…if it’s not okay we can say you’re not feeling great and leave now.”

It’s very thoughtful of Steven to give him an out like this, even thought it was sort of implicit in his original proposition. It occurs to Andrew in one horrible flood of an embarrassing revelation that he does very much want. That some part of him has been poised right on the brink of want all night, and maybe not even hiding it particularly well.

So of course the right thing to do would be to take the out. It’s one thing to embark on this silly pretend relationship façade as a favor to Steven when both of them were actually pretending. It’s another thing, more invasive by far, to use it for self-gratification without Steven knowing about it.

“You can kiss me,” Andrew says, so thoroughly evading the better angels of his nature that it surprises him. “You just can’t tell Adam about it later. He’ll make our lives hell.”

Steven throws back his head and laughs. He’s still got his hand at Andrew’s neck, around the knot of his tie, and Andrew thinks that if they weren’t in public right now, if it was anyone but Steven, he’d be having a really difficult time convincing himself to be a gentleman.

“Cool,” Steven says. That’s it, just: _cool_.

“Cool,” Andrew repeats.

“Cool,” Steven says again. Then he makes a face, realizing he’s fallen into a recursive trap, and takes a big step back. His hand falls away, and Andrew misses it.

*

Now that they’ve established that PG-13 physical intimacies in the name of perpetuating minor fraud are, in fact, _cool_ , the remaining hour of 2018 flies by in a whirlwind of anticipation and dread.

At ten to midnight they make their way back to the main foyer. The deejay’s still at it, but no one’s dancing. They’ve brought in a screen to broadcast the ball dropping in Times Square, and waiters are circulating with glasses of champagne.

Steven’s got an arm slung around Andrew’s waist in a way that should be casual, but which no longer feels casual to Andrew. He finds himself talking just to take his mind off the pressure of Steven’s hand on his hip.

“Another year over,” Andrew says. “Any regrets? Any resolutions you want to knock off the list in the next—” he checks his watch— “four minutes and thirty seven seconds?”

Steven smiles, a little rueful. “It’s too late for me. Better luck next year. What about you?”

That sounds like he _does_ have regrets, but if he’s not going to pony up and share them Andrew won’t pry.

“I don’t really do regrets,” Andrew says. “I’m a patient person. If something doesn’t happen for me this year I figure it might next year, or the year after that.”

“Very philosophical. Very mature. Very boring.”

One of Steven’s fingers is tracing circles at Andrew’s side. Andrew smiles a wry smile; he can barely concentrate when it’s doing that. He can feel it through the fabric of his shirt.

“I am all of those things,” he agrees, but Steven’s already shaking his head.

“I was kidding. I don’t find you boring, Andrew. You’re just, you know,” and Steven makes a complicated hand gesture Andrew can’t interpret. “Together. Grown. You’ve got it figured out.”

“I’m glad the illusion is so complete that I’ve even suckered you into it,” Andrew says. “I have _nothing_ figured out.”

A minute to go. _Zoom in on my sudden and spiraling attraction to my coworker who isn’t into men and spends most of his time nearly three thousand miles away from me,_ Andrew wants to say. _How together do I seem now?_

The countdown starts. The gathered crowd starts to count back from ten in time with the clock on the screen.

“Ten!”

All Andrew can think about is that in fewer than ten seconds, Steven will be kissing him in front of all these people.

“Nine!”

Some of these people have cameras out and know who they are. It could easily leak online, could throw everything they’ve worked for in jeopardy. They’re just famous enough to have to worry about that.

“Eight!”

This was a mistake. Agreeing to kiss Steven, to pretend to date him even if only for a night, was a mistake.

“Seven!”

Andrew knows perfectly well that you can fake your way into anything. You can trick your brain into wanting _anything_. That’s science. It doesn’t mean a thing.

“Six!”

Steven’s hand is firmer on his hip, like he can hear Andrew’s thoughts. Andrew tosses back his glass of champagne, ignoring the way the bubbles fizz and make his nose itch.

“Five!”

The thing is, though, that Andrew’s a liar.

“Four!”

He’d known when he said yes to this thing that it would be a problem. He’d known that Steven was going to be a _problem_.

“Three!”

He’d known it for months. It’s just there’s a difference between knowing a thing, knowing it deep down, and admitting it to yourself.

“Two!”

So no, he’s not together. And yes, he has regrets.

“One! HAPPY NEW YEAR!” the crowd erupts.

Steven grabs Andrew by the chin and tugs him up. Steven’s always had a big presence—he’s a lot. The impression of all that _muchness_ is what Andrew gets now: the inches Steven has on him, the slightly broader shoulders, the impeccable tailoring of his suit, the big goofy smile.

Steven kisses him, and his mouth is sweet from the meringue and the champagne. Andrew supposes his is the same, since they’ve had the same things tonight. That’s a weird thought, that because he and Steven are always eating and drinking the same things they must often taste the same.

Maybe that’s part of why it feels so familiar. Maybe that’s why this kiss is so easy. Andrew rather expected that Steven would be shy or tentative, that he would have to step in and lead, but he’s underestimated Steven. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Steven’s mouth on his is firm and warm, his lips parted enough that Andrew could slip him a little tongue if he didn’t think Steven would have a coronary about it. He tips his head back and lets Steven set the pace and then, when a believable amount of time has elapsed, pull back.

“Happy New Year, Andrew!” Steven exclaims, and then presses a second, jubilant kiss to his cheek. “That was good. What a nice kiss. Good job us.”

This was all, Andrew knows now, a mistake. A thing that was under control before is now very much not under control. This was all a lot easier before he knew firsthand that kissing Steven is, well, it’s quite nice, actually, and he’d like to do it again.

It’s 2019. They say you start the New Year as you mean to go on, which suggests Andrew’s going to spend this year being a first-class lovestruck idiot.

*

Andrew’s starting to think about calling the chauffeur around, or else making the short walk back to the pier alone in the dark, when Steven catches him by the wrist.

“Don’t—it’s too late to go back to Jersey, there’ll be drunk people everywhere,” Steven says. “Stay with—stay in the city tonight.”

“Can I crash on your couch?” Andrew asks. It is late to be going all the way back.

“Well, actually,” Steven starts, and then he stops. Andrew recognizes the body language, suddenly hesitant but playing it off.

“What, Steven.”

“I actually got myself a room here for the night. I’ve always wanted to stay at the Beekman, so you could, um. We could share.”

If this was another person, a non-Steven person, Andrew would be suspicious. It all seems very seamlessly planned, is all. The chauffeured car, the dancing, the kissing, the _room_. But Steven’s not really tricky in this way; he plans, but he doesn’t manipulate, and he certainly doesn’t invite people to go home with him casually, like it’s nothing—not unless it _is_ nothing.

_Mistake!_ Andrew’s brain is yelling at him. He means to open his mouth to decline, but instead what comes out is, “Yeah, okay. I bet the rooms here are nice.”

*

The room _is_ very nice.

Steven’s pulling his tie off and slipping out of his shoes before Andrew can even close the door behind them, so he’s only half paying attention, but yeah. Room’s great. It’s really big, for a New York hotel room.

Suspiciously big, actually.

“Steven, is this a suite?” Andrew asks, toeing his own shoes off by the door. The king-sized bed has a leather headboard. There’s a little foyer leading into the bedroom, with a wet bar. There’s dark real oak on the floors and Spanish tile in the equally-massive bathroom.

“Must’ve gotten a free upgrade?” Steven says, but his voice quavers up at the end, as if he’s asking Andrew rather than telling him.

“There’s no such thing as a free anything in New York City on New Year’s Eve,” Andrew says. “Steven, what’s going on? What’s this about?”

_What, Steven._

Steven pulls a face Andrew doesn’t recognize. That in itself is unusual, because Andrew has spent a lot of time looking at Steven, both on-camera and off, and he thought he knew all the faces.

“Okay, just. Don’t be mad, but—”

And then all of a sudden Steven’s right up in his space again, catching Andrew by the hips, kissing him a lot harder than he had downstairs at the party. Kissing him exactly like no one’s watching, because no one is.

Andrew opens his mouth to say something, and to his shock Steven takes the opportunity to slip him a little tongue, just a dart in and along his own tongue, a quick suck at it and then back away into a kiss that’s a lot firmer than he would have expected. And Steven’s hands are…they are _wandering_. Entirely above the waist, but still. Back at Andrew’s tie, at his ribcage, around to his back.

After too long, Andrew makes himself pull back.

“Steven, stop it for—pause. Please pause and tell me what’s going on. You can’t just say _don’t be mad_ and then fly at me.”

Steven doesn’t just pause, he moves all the way away. He sits on the bed cross-legged, his legs tucked under him. Making himself smaller in anticipation of Andrew’s anger, maybe, and that makes Andrew’s stomach clench.

“Remember how you asked if there were any resolutions I didn’t get to keep and I said it was too late?” Steven asks. He laughs then, but it’s sort of hollow-sounding. “Well, there’s this one: I wanted to have sex in 2018.”

“Come again?” Andrew asks, immediately regretting his word choice. “Uh. Pardon?”

“After the breakup I decided this was going to be the year that—yeah. But it didn’t happen because I didn’t meet anybody I liked well enough.”

Andrew approaches him tentatively and sort of half-perches on the edge of the bed. He’s struggling to connect this extreme emotional vulnerability with the guy who was mauling him with his mouth not three minutes ago.

“I thought you were…sorry, if this is none of my business just tell me to butt out. I assumed you were waiting for religious reasons.”

“Sort of,” Steven says. “I wanted—I _want_ —my first time to be with someone I love and trust. She wanted it to be with her husband. For a really long time I thought those were the same thing, but.” He shrugs.

“So, then…tonight?” Andrew asks.

“Turns out the list of people I love and trust and am attracted to is sort of short,” Steven says. “It also turns out that I get attached. So.” He gestures at Andrew, up and down the length of him.

“This favor of yours is turning out to be very nuanced and multi-faceted,” Andrew says wryly. “You really buried the lede on this one.”

“Yeah, kind of bad, right?” Steven says, and he does look embarrassed. It’s endearing. “And it was never going to work, and now it’s 2019 so I have a whole year to try again with someone who’s less of an HR violation.”

Andrew’s still sort of flustered from the one-two-three punch of Steven making out with him against the wall, saying the word _sex_ , and then basically coming out and admitting that he was trying to have sex _with Andrew_. He’s not thinking clearly and cannot be trusted to speak, which is why it’s too bad that his brain and his mouth are no longer communicating.

“Well,” Andrew says. “Technically it is 2019 here, yes. But on L.A. time it’s still 2018 for another—” and he consults his watch— “two hours and twelve minutes.”

Steven’s head whips up.

“Andrew…” he starts.

“I’m just saying that hypothetically that would be more than enough time.”

“Ten minutes would be more than enough time,” Steven says.

“Well, when you put it like that I’m really sold.”

“Don’t. If you’re not serious, don’t offer,” Steven says. “I wouldn’t want it to be a pity thing.”

Andrew wants to reach out and touch him. He wants to reassure Steven that it’s not a _pity_ thing, that he really means it.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Tonight was—special. Like something somebody dreamed up. I’ve been thinking about it all night, actually.”

“Yes!” Steven crows. “Yes! I seduced you so good! I told you I’d woo you like no one had ever been wooed before, and it worked, and—”

He falls back on the bed and kicks his socked feet in the air gleefully.  

“Okay, well, don’t gloat about it,” Andrew says. “This kills the erection.”

Steven sits up again. His hair’s a mess, his suit’s all wrinkled. He gives Andrew a sort of frantic, hot look that makes Andrew’s stomach feel like it’s full of molten liquid.  

“You won’t make fun of me, right? For not knowing what I’m doing.”

“Steven, have I ever once made fun of you for not knowing what you were doing?”

The answer’s actually _yes, loads of times_ , but never for anything that mattered. Never for something like this.

“Can I kiss you again?” Steven asks. This habit he has of asking for every little thing he wants is sweet. If it were a stranger it might be a little off-putting, but on Steven it just comes off like the utmost sincerity. It’s old-fashioned in a way Andrew finds appealing.

“Knock yourself out,” Andrew says. He scoots all the way onto the bed. He goes to loosen his tie, but Steven put out an arm to stop him.

“Keep it on for now?” he asks. He might be nervous about the pace of it, but Andrew actually thinks it’s something else. He remembers Steven’s hand on the knot of his tie, earlier, his fingers wound around the silk.

“Sure thing, Steven,” he says, and Steven leans in to kiss him again.

*

The whole _first_ thing doesn’t hold any particular appeal for Andrew. He’s never wanted to be someone’s first, not since he was past his own firsts. He always assumed it would be much more trouble than it was worth; too stressful, too many expectations, too much pressure. He’s not a flag-planting kind of guy. He’d rather come along once there’s running water and an In-N-Out.

But the other thing is that it’s Steven, so the first thing doesn’t really matter. It matters in that Andrew needs to be so, so careful, but he would have always been careful no matter the circumstances. It’s _Steven_.

Kissing Steven had been surprisingly exciting, but kissing him on a bed (horizontally!) is something else entirely. Unbuttoning his dress shirt, beginning the de-layering process in earnest, is a thrill. Steven shakes the whole time, but Andrew’s hand is also shaking so it seems fair that nobody mentions it.

They make out for a long time, probably close to an hour. Steven’s better at it than Andrew would have supposed. By the end of it they’re both breathless and stripped to the waist.

“Can I?” Steven asks, his hand on Andrew’s belt. That permission thing, again. Damn, Andrew’s going to have to buy a shirt that says “Consent is Sexy” and wear it everywhere. He might have to hire a plane for some sky-writing. He always agreed in the broader conceptual sense, but it’s never felt so intensely, _urgently_ sexy to him before right now.

“You may. Heads up, there is nothing in my pocket and I _am_ happy to see you.”

Steven giggles. “Thanks for the warning. That’s kind of the point.”

“Well, I know it’s the point. I just wanted to make sure you were also on board with the point. Knowing and doing aren’t always the same thing.”  

In answer, Steven unbuckles Andrew’s belt and slides it out of his pant loops with a firm crack. His hands fall to the fly of his pants, to attend to the unbuttoning and unzipping. To Andrew’s surprise, Steven eases his pants and boxer-briefs off in one fell swoop and then sits back on his heels to stare.

He giggles again.

“That’s what a guy likes to hear,” Andrew says.

“No, it’s not _funny_ ,” Steven says, shaking his head. “It’s just, you know when you try a new food for the first time and it’s not at all what you expected?”

“You were expecting more umami?”

“It’s plenty umami,” Steven says, licking his lips. “No, how can I…? It’s like I’ve been thinking about this for so long, thinking about you like this for so long, that I forgot it would still just be _you_. You but naked.”  

Andrew thinks he understands. Steven’s sitting there on the bed shirtless, his belt undone, his hair a wreck from all the times Andrew’s run his hands through it, and the best part of it is still that he’s Steven.

“You could also be you but naked,” Andrew says. He has itchy, twitchy fingers. “Imagine how fun that could be.”

“Andrew, I’ve imagined little else for the last four days.”

The flirting is nice, but also it’s 2:15 in the morning and 2019 is approaching in Los Angeles. Andrew made a commitment to the deadline, and he’s not about to renege on it.

“Let me show you something, for a change,” he says. Steven swallows hard; Andrew watches the muscles of his throat working, sees the flush make its way down his neck to his chest.

“Okay,” he agrees.

*

It’s not that Andrew has an oral fixation. He just likes putting things in his mouth. Surely that is a normal part of the human experience.

He likes, very much, putting his mouth to Steven’s abs and his hands on either hip and feeling the muscles jump under his lips, under his fingers.

He likes, even more, sliding his mouth down around Steven’s hipbone, biting down there very gently and feeling Steven’s sharp intake of breath. Feeling him quivering with the effort of holding it, like if he exhales Andrew will change his mind and move his mouth away.

He really likes ghosting his own breath over the (surprising, by the way) length of Steven and hearing that nervous giggle again. He’s learned by now that the giggle means he’s doing something right; it means that Steven’s shaking off old hang-ups and fitting a new piece of himself into place.

“I might be rusty at this,” Andrew says by way of preemptive apology. Steven just laughs, a breathless, shocked laugh.

“Then I guess the good news is that I’m not going to know the difference.”

Best of all Andrew likes taking Steven in his mouth and making him forget to be polite. Steven is so well-mannered, and it takes a lot to make him forget it. Sliding down as far down as he can go and flitting his eyes up to Steven’s to take in the effect, Andrew finally achieves it.

Steven’s hands, which were making fists in the French linen sheets, fall to Andrew’s head. His hips snap up unbidden and he lets fly a marvelously imaginative string of curses that Andrew didn’t realize he had in him.

“Sorry,” Steven groans. “I just—it’s—ah.”

Andrew pulls off with a pop, and that has an effect too. Steven’s hips chase him, trying to bring back the contact, and Andrew nuzzles down to tongue around the head.

“Yeah, isn’t it? You’re good, you can touch.”

Andrew recommits to the task at hand. The challenge is to make it good but not _too_ good. He wants to get Steven right on the edge—he’s there already, his hand clenched in Andrew’s hair, his whole body tense, his toes curled—and keep him there for a while. Long enough that he doesn’t feel embarrassed, long enough that he gets to actually enjoy the thing.

The fourth or fifth time he’s pulled back to let Steven cool down, Steven makes a whining noise. “Andrew, not that I’m not impressed, but.”

“Is this how you want to come?”

He has a hunch it isn’t, because he knows Steven, because he knows how Steven feels about intimacy. He knows Steven’s heart, and it’s soft and mushy and craving meaningful eye contact and a shared climax and possibly whispered sweet nothings. That’s not really Andrew’s usual MO, but it’s _Steven_ and he can accommodate a little romance.

Sure enough— “Actually, come here,” Steven says, and he’s tugging Andrew up by the arm. It takes a fair amount of willpower to stop somebody mid-blowjob, so props to him for knowing his mind.

“Thought so,” Andrew says. He curls his body up close to Steven’s, winds his hand down to get his hand around Steven’s dick, still wet from his mouth.

“Am I really that predictable?” Steven asks, pausing halfway through to gasp. The honest answer is yes. “Can I touch you too?”

It’s Andrew’s turn to laugh. “You better,” he jokes. Well, half-jokes.

From there it’s pretty much the ball game. Obviously Steven liked the blowjob—most people do—but it turns out that what he _really_ likes is skin on skin, and rolling over so Andrew’s under him, and touching Andrew in return. Very softly at first, and then matching Andrew’s pace so they’re both gasping.

He gets off on getting Andrew off, which pleases Andrew because it means Steven intuitively understands the _point_ of sex, the reason people do it at all instead of sticking with their own hands or whatever. He gets that it’s about the convergence point between pleasure and connection; about doing something for and with someone instead of _to_ someone.

When Steven comes messily all over Andrew’s hand he surges down to kiss Andrew hard on the mouth, forming another point of connection between them, and Andrew can’t help but follow. Steven’s overwhelmed noises are too much. His hand, clumsy but determined, is too much.

It’s 2:58 am in New York City; it’s 11:58 pm in Los Angeles.

They lie there for two minutes in silence.

“Happy New Year, again,” Andrew says, watching the clock on the bedside table roll over to 3 am. “How do you feel? Different?”

Steven stretches and wipes uselessly at his stomach with the edge of the sheet. Then he swipes at Andrew’s stomach too, and considers.

“No. Well, I feel—mushy. I can’t help but notice that you’re sort of glowing to me right now, and I don’t know if that’s normal. Is that normal?”

Andrew laughs low into the pillow. He hasn’t stayed up this late in a long time, and all of a sudden he’s bone-tired.

“Yeah, that’s normal. Why do you think they call it the afterglow?”

“Ohhhhh,” Steven says. “Neat. That’s neat.”

“Was it like how you thought it would be?”

Steven seems okay. He seems pretty great, actually. He’s smiling. But Andrew can’t go to sleep until he knows for sure that he hasn’t ruined everything.

“What, on my wedding night, underneath white silk sheets covered in rose petals, with my wife? Not quite like that, no. Still good. Sometimes what we think we want at eighteen isn’t what we actually want at twenty-eight, and that’s…that’s okay.”

Andrew’s almost asleep. Steven curls around him, close—of course he’s a post-coital cuddler, of course he wants to sleep touching, and that’s fine. He touches Andrew tentatively with a hand flat on his stomach, like he’s not quite sure he’s still allowed to, and Andrew presses back so Steven knows he can.

“Thanks for tonight,” Steven says. “Thanks for pretending to be my boyfriend. I promise it was only sort of a little bit of an elaborate ruse to get you into bed.”

“Who’s pretending?” Andrew mumbles. The last thing he feels before he drifts off is Steven pressing a smile into his shoulder blade.

Andrew has, after all, started the year as he means to go on.  

*


End file.
